Oh Sandy I feel your pain! I am orienting to a new job position while working the old job and time is so limited. I have half the new outside electric finished and need to pull water plants, clean the settling pond, ect., ect.

I deal with Winter by making a conscious effort not to hate it. In zone 5 there are 6 months of okay to fabulous weather and 6 months of okay to grey and bleak. I can't choose to hate 6 months of the year so I try to find things I like about the cold seasons. The quiet, the crisp air and the relative privacy of your home life during the cold seasons are some things I like. The anticipation of spring when February arrives is another thing I like. There is nothing like hope. :)

Here is to getting thru another cold spell.

Warm regards,
lisa

I actually like fall, but after 2 solid weeks of rain and dreary days I was starting to feel like there was nothing to enjoy about it. The sun FINALLY broke out Saturday and it's amazing how much more enjoyable the yard work got!
So bring on the sweatshirts and gloves just keep the sun shining 'til I get everything tucked in for winter.

Just wish my list wasn't so long :)

S

Cold weather isn't my #1 favorite thing, but I do handle it much better if it doesn't rain and the sun shines. I try to go out on the nicer days, and I dress and layer as needed. I go hunting with my husband so I have become an expert on trying to stay warmer. But, the down side is, all those layers I wear makes me look like the Michelin Tire Man in Camo. I get tickled at myself, when I find myself all bundled up, and then dropping something on the ground and trying to bend over and pick it up. On that silly note, I got my first buck of the season on Saturday. Yoo Hoo, freezer is filling up.

Heaven help me. SAD is hitting me hard. Yesterday I fell asleep while I was brushing my teeth. I woke up as I fell onto a large tower fan and my arm was knocking everything off of the counter. Several times lately I have found myself sleeping with my head resting on a table or desk. This is bad news. I thought most of this particular affect of SAD had gone away. I find myself wanting to consume large amounts of anything sweet. I really need to find a way to wake up!
Does anyone here have any suggestions for coping. I don't have time to give up driving as I have had to do in the past. The lights work only so long as they are actually on. Sandy

Sandy, maybe you have sleep apnea? Hope you weren't hurt! Sarah

Thanks for the suggestion, Sarah, but this is a different kettle of fish. This is a part of my Fibromyalgia syndrome. It is an effect of insufficient sunlight or a reasonable substitute.Its called Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD. Until now I have been able to fix it with the greenhouse and a light box. Now with no greenhouse the lightbox isn't enough. It can be treated with a Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitor, commonly called Prozac with Melatonin and Ambien that lets you sleep normally. I hate to add pills to the handful I am already taking but it is the difference between sleeping from October through April or getting a good rest without waking up screaming with pain from muscle spasms. I keep reminding myself that I went almost 15 years with no help at all. Oh well, guess I call the doctor tomorrow. Sandy

Here is a link that might be useful: SAD, sometimes called Winter Blues

Sandy,
I suffer from major depression. I take medication on a daily basis. I don't like it either but think of it this way. If you had diabetes and needed to control your sugar and tried diet but it did not work and insulin was the only way to control it, you would take the insulin rather than have a stroke and ruin your body organs. I still try to control my depression by alternative means but I take my meds to make myself feel better or I will suffer the consequenses.
Teri

Sandy,

I know SAD can be serious, my sister suffers from it. Only mentioned sleep apnea because I was recently diagnosed with the problem, and I didn't realize falling asleep at inappropriate times was a symptom of SAD.
My sleep study showed I had an average of 117 episodes of "interrupted" (my term) sleep per hour. I was basically getting no REM sleep at all. Have been on APAP for 2 weeks and am amazed how rested I feel now. It wasn't 'til I went camping with a friend who said, "you know, you stop breathing when you're sleeping", that it occurred to me what the problem was and looked into it.

Hope your doctor can help. Sarah

Sorry you have Sleep Apnea, Sarah. I hear it can be scary and dangerous. Just think of all the years wasted before we got sleep studies. I'm really glad you have a solution that works for you.
Inappropriate, thats a good word for it. Dangerous is another and you can add expensive to the list. One of the first things they had to eliminate was Narcolepsy. Then there was the full psych evaluation to prove I wasn't nuts and CAT Scans to rule out a tumor. What's worse is trying to explain to one of my sisters that the Prozac is not for controlling some sort of mental or emotional illness. She has always been convinced that everyone but her is crazy and this only proves it. Sigh... we can't choose our relatives, can we?
I haven't had a bout this serious in a few years. The last was a summer bout that kept me awake for days at a time until I could get a new prescription. Funny how it swings in tune to the weather and season.
Teri, thanks for the affirmation and encouragement. Getting the right balance is so difficult. Keep at it. The pills make life so much easier, but I grew up when they were not always so benevolent. It will always nag at me that I really shouldn't need them. Some of the new meds for Fibro are very helpful. Most of the time I do fine but I can't fight overcast days and the angle of the sun in the winter where we live. Sandy

Sandy, I just saw this thread.
Have you ever tried Provigil?
Have you had a sleep study?
Alot of us with FMS have alpha wave intrusion. That means that when we start to go into a deeper sleep, we automatically wake ourselves up. There is a med out for it. I think its called Xyrem, but I'm not sure how good it works.
But I would definitely get a good sleep study first.
I have been using a cpap machine for a little over 2 years and am doing alot better. Getting through perimenopause also did wonders for me.
Do you think a different brand of light might work better?
What kind of doctor is taking care of you?

Sarah....sounds like you've adjusted fairly quickly to using a cpap. I started out on the apap setting, but was waking up all through the night. I found out that some of us are so sensitive that the changes in the auto pressure wake us up. As soon as I went to straight cpap, I started sleeping almost the whole night through. What kind of mask and machine are you using? I'm only on 7.2 pressure, but it does the trick for me. I'm glad its working for you!

Sandy,

Something that has helped me a great deal with depression is the Rodney Yee (or Gee) AM yoga tape. It is a 20 minute routine that is gentle stretches. I started doing it to help with fibromyalgia pain and found that it had a profound positive effect on my outlook and lessened the depression significantly. I also had more energy the next day.

I don't know if it would have a similar positive effect on SAD, but I thought I'd mention it.
Anne

Everyone has such good suggestions. Thank you. Today was a good sunny day but I still didn't wake up til noon. The cat has a habit of pushing things off of the dressers and countertops when I don't pay attention to her and the tops were all cleared off today, even the heavy stuff. I think I need a new alarm clock. It was just making hiccup noises when I finally got awake.
I've been trying to make a phone call for the last 5 days and haven't managed to do it yet at a time I know I will be able to get hold of that person. How am I going to be able to help a high school build a greenroof if I can't say awake long enough to talk to anyone?
Anne, I know exercise helps but I need a partner who won't get upset if I start crying. I had a gym refund my money because they said it upset their other members to see tears running down my face and I scared one employee when I screamed because he didn't understand that I really meant it when I said low-impact. I'll check out the Yoga you recommend. I couldn't concentrate on the Tai chi.
Catherine, I have had sleep studies but its been a while. I just changed doctors and maybe he will want another. I haven't heard of provigil. I've been taking cyclobenzaprine for almost 20 years because I have horrible muscle spasms and the Lyrica is fairly new, prescribed for nerve damage. Its just by chance it works on the fibro.
I've been through a bunch of different kinds of doctors but the last Rheumatologist said his specialty was pretty much done with me and unless I got worse again I could go to a GP who could write the prescriptions and cost a lot less than he did. Until his group stopped taking our insurance, I had a neurologist and pain specialist who gave me triggerpoint shots. The Lyrica and a TENS have been taking care of that. I think the orthopedic guys figure they are done. They were giving each other high fives and acting like idiots at my last checkup.
I guess I needed a push and some of your sympathy. Thank you. I'll try to stop complaining now.

Sandy, its a real bummer to have a condition that doesn't fit into a doctor's "repertoire".
I don't know how old you are, but when I went through perimenopause, I thought I would die. I could barely make it to the grocery store and back. It was a horrible several years for me.
I think around menopause, lots of women start having sleep problems. Besides it being possibly a brain problem, I think our muscles get very lax when we lose our hormones, and this can lead to obstructive sleep apnea.
One thing you might do before you do another sleep study, is to see if you can get hold of a recording finger oximeter. That will show if you are desaturating during the night. If its fine, then you probably don't need a sleep study.(at least for obstructive apnea).
There was a woman on a fibro forum I was one who swore up and down that she slept fine. Her doc convinced her to have a sleep study, and it ended up showing that she awoke hundreds of times an hour!
Anyhow......its something to consider.
But be sure your doc has done alot of sleep studies if you have one. My first was done by an "expert" and I only slept an hour and a half, and he said there weren't any problems. Several years later, after unending fatigue, I had another at a different place and it showed the apnea/hypopnea problem.
I'm feeling alot better, but can't say for sure if its using the cpap, or I'm past perimenopause.......or my kids moved out (college). haha I make a joke of that, but the stress of living with kids really made alot of my FMS/sleep problems worse.
Good luck Sandy.

By the time I had the sleep test which was at a major hospital connected with Wisconsin University and had a big research dept. concerning sleep problems, I had the Fibro for several years. It had just reached the point where I couldn't do the things I needed to do with two young children. I was afraid to drive, it was almost impossible to get the housework done and when I went to the doctor I fell asleep sitting on the edge of the examination table in the middle of a sentence. He caught me before I hit the floor. He said it scared him and he wasn't qualified to deal with it but there were plenty of Doctors in Madison who could. I must have seen 6 specialists to rule out different things before the sleep tests and even then we found the correct diagnosis in a pop science magazine. Good grief that was over 30 years ago now that I add up the numbers. I've had lots of tests for different aspects of fibro since then and had a number of Rheumatologists concur with the diagnosis and treatments although some of the treatments didn't work. Some times I have to take more muscle relaxers or get trigger point injections or start treating a symptom like SAD when it acts up. When I had the back surgery I did some work with the group that deals with breathing problems and anesthesiology. The surgeons wanted to make sure I didn't have too low a level of oxygen before they started. It's way too dangerous to mix major surgery with low oxygen levels. They were confident that was not going to be a problem even though I have been smoking since I was 15. I guess being a singer and being able to go two minutes on one breath helped.
Maybe I should go back to some of those voice exercises I used to do for breath control and range. Who knows, I've done stranger things that worked. I only stopped doing them because the kids would cry when I let it all out and neighbors could hear me too well. I guess it was too different from my normal speaking tone. Most people would think I am an alto from my speaking voice but I actually was a coloraturo soprano. I guess there are not too many singers with that range. It might be fun to try to get it back. I might even find a church choir to sing with.

Wow Sandy! What a range of talents you have! Never knew you were a singer too!

Cath, I have a Respronics RemStar Auto machine. Started with a Mirage Quattro FF mask, just got a knew Fullife mask today, the 1st pinched my cheekbones :) It's an APAP, goes from 10-20/cmH2O, I was so tired it never woke me up. It can be set to gradually increase up from 5, but I don't even use that setting anymore. Can't believe how much better I feel! More rested, more energy, more alert.
Looking forward to trying the new mask 'cause it looks like I'll be able to wear my glasses to read in bed :0)

S

Sarah, don't get the wrong impression. I was never a professional singer. The only time I got paid was when I sang with a boyfriend's jazz band. That stopped when we stopped dating. It was fun, though. I sang with several choirs.

I admire your multiple talents! Especially being able to teach people about things you know and love - it's giving back while doing something you (we) enjoy.... know what I mean?

I sang in the Jr chuch choir, not sure why, except your church can really kick you out even though you can't carry a tune. I love to sing with the radio in the car on a long drive, but even I know I'm REALLY bad, lol. However, I have other talents :o)

Back to the Fall issue.... I am so pleased that my pump is still running in my pond. The water is crystal clear, and I'm netting out the last of the leaves. Unheard of for the week before Thanksgiving in zone 4 Minnesota! But tomorrow I must pull it, hose it off and pack it away for winter - this can't last much longer. After a dismal October, November has been sunny and mild. Don't know which weather report to believe on any given day but I hope we get another week or 2 (or more!) of this! Especially for the farmers that haven't harvested their corn due the wet weather.

I am going to try to keep my mouth shut around DH about the problems that pop up when the guy my DH wants to do the yard in the fall. There are always problems since he wants to do it his way and refuses to listen to what I want done. He starts in on his speech..."I've been doing landscaping for 19 years and I know all...". He doesn't hear that I've done the landscaping on 10 houses we have owned over 45 years, not including a Historical Home being turned into a Museum that I researched to find out the original gardens appearance. Plus I ran a Greenhouse for 20 years, designed part of the grounds of the Master Gardeners Display Gardens plus putting in the greenroof. Plus, I've been a Master Gardener for 15 years.
I stepped out of the back door to do something and discovered his employee attempting to blow leaves out of the top of the Skippy with a high powered leaf blower. Not only are the leaves still there but the water in the pond is black stinky and the trays of charcoal and ammo-block are empty. The floating plants are ripped to shreds, the fish have been hiding and I will have to clean the pond out again tomorrow.
I could go on for several pages but all I want to do is go to sleep.